1851 $50 California Gold - Augustus Humbert 880 Thous. RE NGC XF40

This is the second version of the $50 "slugs" that were minted under the authority of Augustus Humbert, who managed the U.S. Assay Office of gold in San Francisco. Unlike the numerous private companies that produced their own ingots and coins during this time, the Assay Office was an official United States government sanctioned mint. NGC has graded 15 as XF40 with 83 finer. Collectors Universe gives this variety a price of $40,000.00 in XF40.

San Francisco harbor in either 1850 or 1851. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

On this second version, time-consuming operations associated with the early version were reduced greatly. For example, the legends that were applied by hand to the edge faces in earlier issues were now cut directly into the obverse die. That one improvement eliminated seven single steps in the production process. Plus, the date (1851) and fineness (880) were carved into the die instead of needing to be punched in by hand, which eliminated two more steps. And reeding replaced the edge lettering in order to prevent clipping or shaving.

Don Kagin attributed this version as K-5 in his 1981 book, Private Gold Coins and Patterns of the United States. Kagin listed this variety as Low R-5, indicating that there are about 75-100 survivors. Due to their heavy weight, many of these coins have bruises or dents on the corners, such as this offering from AUCM.